PAHRC’s significant collection of periodicals includes newspapers and journals related to black Catholics. Among these are the earliest newspapers published by and for the black Catholic community. These newspapers also covered issues relating to the African American community in a broader sense.

According to Cyprian Davis, author of The History of Black Catholics in the United States, the black Catholic laity emerged as a cohesive and influential force during the last couple decades of the 19th century. In November 1889, a number of prominent men (the actual number is not known) gathered in Baltimore for the first black Catholic lay congress in the country’s history.

The emergence of this community was largely due to the efforts of Daniel Rudd, the “leading Catholic representative of the Negro Race.” It also appears to have been due to the significant increase in missionary work among African Americans around this time as evidenced by the considerable number of journals devoted to black Catholic missions that began to be published towards the end of the 19th century.

It was in 1886 that Daniel Rudd started the weekly black newspaper American Catholic Tribune, initially titled Ohio State Tribune in Springfield, Ohio. The newspaper was then published in Cincinnati before moving to Detroit where it continued to operate until 1899. Rudd noted the paper would “give the great Catholic Church a hearing and show that it is worthy of at least a fair consideration at the hands of our race, being as it is the only place on this Continent where rich and poor, white and black, must drop prejudice at the threshold and go hand in hand to the altar.”[1]

American Catholic Tribune, February 25, 1887

PAHRC has a fairly significant, though incomplete, run of the American Catholic Tribune from 1887 to 1894. According to WorldCat, only several libraries worldwide have this newspaper.

The Research Center also has several issues of The Journal, a weekly Philadelphia newspaper published in 1892 by Swann and Hart. Though it lasted less than a year, The Journal spoke to Philadelphia’s growing number of Black Catholics. It appears that PAHRC is the only institution that has this publication.

PAHRC also has a single issue of The Catholic Herald (February 18, 1905) which was published in Washington D.C. I have not been able to find any information about this publication. The paper was given official approbation by James Cardinal Gibbons and describes itself as “The only colored Catholic paper authorized by the Church.” Its masthead also read: “The Catholic Church is the only hope of the Negro.”

PAHRC’s collection of periodicals also includes several journals relating to black Catholic missions. Published by religious orders that devoted their missionary work to blacks, such as the Josephite Fathers, these journals not only offer insight into these orders and their activities, but also document the African American communities with which the orders interacted.

PAHRC has a significant, though incomplete, run of The Josephite Harvest, previously The Colored Harvest, from the first year of its publication in 1888 to 1956. Based in Baltimore and educated at St. Joseph’s Seminary, the Josephites established black missions throughout the country and abroad.

The Colored Harvest (October 1893)

A photograph of St. Francis school and church in Natchez, Missouri (October 1893 issue)

Photographs depicting May processions and high school graduates from several parish schools and academies in Baltimore and the surrounding area (July-August 1923 issue)

Other journals in PAHRC’s collection includeThe Flight, published by the Institute of Mission Helpers in Baltimore, andMission fields at home followed by Mission published by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Philadelphia. Founded by Saint Katharine Drexel, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament devoted themselves to mission work among blacks and Native Americans.

[1] Cyprian Davis. The History of Black Catholics in the United States. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1990.

A major part of the American Catholic Historical Society’s collection housed at PAHRC is its collection of Catholic newspapers. This collection contains Catholic newspapers, mostly from the early 19th to the early 20th centuries, that were published throughout the United States, as well as some foreign newspapers.

One of these periodicals is The Journal, a weekly Philadelphia newspaper published in 1892. The paper was created by black Catholics for the African American Catholic community. PAHRC has several issues of the paper.

July 9, 1892 issue

Black Catholics, made up of both free and enslaved African Americans, had been a presence in Philadelphia since the establishment of the city’s Catholic community. Black Catholics worshiped at the oldest Catholic churches in Philadelphia, including Old St. Joseph (1733), Old St. Mary (1763), and Holy Trinity (1788), although they worshipped separately from the white congregation. When they did attend mass with whites, blacks often had to sit in certain designated areas which were usually the back of the church or the balcony. However, researchers have recently noted that some black families were able to rent pews in the gallery of Old St. Joseph.

The number of black Catholics in Philadelphia grew considerably during the Haitian revolution (1791-1804) when many refugees immigrated to the city. Evidence of black Catholics can be found within the sacramental registers of the older parishes, particularly Old St. Joseph. Old St. Joseph’s baptismal and marriage records include notations for those parishioners who were “slaves” or “negroes”. Most of these records do not include surnames of the family or individual.

Old St. Joseph baptismal records from May 1796

The above baptismal records from May 1796 include the following entries:

Josephine Louisa, negress, born March 1773, of London and Phyllis, (Ethiopian?) slaves; baptized May 1 (1796) by Rev. L. Neale

Rachel, born March 17, 1789, of Margaret Felia and Phanice, negroes, unbelievers; baptized May 2 by Rev. M. Ennis

Louis, negro; aged about 6 months, born of John Lewis and Ophelia, negroes; baptized May 6, by Rev. R. Houdet

Old St. Joseph marriage record: John Louis Lindor and Louisa Rosette, negroes of the Colored Island of San Domingo were married June 9, 1801 by Rev. George Staunton; witnesses were Peter Michel and John King

The Black Catholic community continued to grow during the 19th century. The Jesuit priest Father Barbelin opened a school, Blessed St. Peter Claver, for black children on Lombard St. in 1859, which was later taught by the Sisters of Providence from Baltimore. By the 1880s, black Catholics began a concerted effort to establish a church and accompanying school for the community. In 1886, the St. Peter Claver Union, which Father Ernest Hiltermann of Holy Trinity Church had formed for black Catholics, along with the help of others within the Catholic community, most notably Katharine Drexel, purchased the former Fourth Presbyterian Church located on the southwest corner of 12th and Lombard Streets, renaming it St. Peter Claver Church. The church was dedicated in 1892.

St. Peter Claver Church, circa 1961

The Journal, most likely associated with the founding of the new parish, devoted its coverage to local and national news relating to black Catholics as well as news about black issues in the United States. It also covered news concerning St. Peter Claver. The top of the newspaper’s title page read “The Catholic Church is the only Liberator of the Negro.” The paper’s proprietors and publishers were Swann and Hart, located at 20 N. 13th Street. The Journal only ran from about February to September 1892. In the September 25th issue the editors note, “The Journal is having a hard struggle to keep its head above water and live, but with all our drawbacks we’ll live.”

Souvenir of the Diamond Jubilee of St. Peter Claver’s Parish, 1886-1961. (PH0120)

Willging, Eugene P. and Herta Hatzfeld. Catholic serials of the nineteenth century in the United States; a descriptive bibliography and union list. Second series: Part Five, Pennsylvania. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1964.